Negotiating the Local Food Environment: The Lived Experience of Food Access for Low-Income People Living With HIV/AIDS

Good Eats was a 10-week community-based research workshop series on food security for persons living with HIV/AIDS in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, Canada. This is a population that is very food insecure and for whom access to nutritious food is critical for health. We suggest that using methods that engage marginalized populations in the research process can contribute to our understanding of food insecurity in a local food environment. In this example, although there are a number of charitable food programs in the neighborhood, factors such as food provider regulations, inadequate housing, and drug addictions contribute to food insecurity for this population.